From inclusion to integration: intercultural dialogue and contemporary university dance education

Abstract

It was not until the 1980s, more than half a century after modern dance became the centre of university dance programmes, that dance educators began writing about diversity issues. While some authors have addressed the importance of diversifying curricula and others have written specifically about classes they re‐visioned in a more multicultural way, few have written about how we might go about updating university dance departments in a practical way at the level of curriculum. In this article, two dance professors, one in Canada and the other in Brazil, discuss the ideological foundations of existing university dance programmes to imagine a more inclusive vision for dance education in increasingly globalized local contexts. They then share the model that they have developed for contemporary, intercultural dance curricula at the university level, which is rooted in the principles of dialogue and integration.